Americans Rally for Religious Freedom (4290)

1,000 protest in front of the Health and Human Services Department in Washington, as more gather in 140 cities across the country.

Protesters pray while participating in a 'Stand Up for Religious Freedom' rally in front of the Department of Health and Human Services March 23 in Washington. The rally was one of 140 rallies held in cities across the United States as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on the Obama administration's national health-care legislation next week.

– Win McNamee/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — “We are no longer free when politicians can force us to pay for what we consider sin,” an impassioned Star Parker, the keynote speaker, said at the Stand Up For Religious Freedom rally held today in Washington.

Parker was speaking at a noon rally held to protest a mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services requiring religious employers to provide health-insurance policies that include contraception without a co-pay, sterilization and abortifacients. Employers refusing on religious grounds to pay for such policies will face stiff fines.

The event drew more than 1,000 participants to the plaza in front of the HHS building. It was one of 140 rallies held nationwide, all at noon local time.

In Washington, signs with slogans such as “You cannot take my inalienable rights” or “Stop Obama’s HHS Mandate” were waved aloft. Students for Life had a black-and-white sign that read simply: “Where’s the Freedom?”

One woman at the rally carried a sign that read, “God’s servant first,” a reference to St. Thomas More’s statement when he was asked to affirm his loyalty to King Henry VIII.

Second Anniversary of Obamacare

The rallies took place on the second anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — often referred to as “Obamacare.”

It was the Affordable Care Act that gave the HHS the authority to create the contraception mandate.

“It is because of this piece of legislation that we are here today,” said Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life, who was also featured on the program. “Obamacare gave our government, namely the Department of Health and Human Services, the building we stand in front of here today, the ability to shape the future of our nation and determine who lives and who dies in our society.”

“Never before has our nation seen so much control given to one department, to one person, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius,” Hawkins said.

“Because of this unconstitutional mandate, we are told that our beliefs, our conscience, no longer matter,” Hawkins said. “Friends, this is called tyranny. This is the type of tyranny that our forefathers fled from Europe and why our great nation was founded. It is this freedom that separates us from many other nations and dictatorships around the world which enslave their countrymen.”

Asked to comment on the rally, an HHS spokesperson said, “Our policy accommodates religious liberty while protecting the health of women. The policy ensures that if a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.”

Star Parker, an anti-poverty activist, said that the mandate puts religious organizations that provide services to the poor in an untenable situation.

“Why,” Parker asked, “are President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius so hostile to those who are compelled by their faith to serve the poor?”

Parker said that she believes that — ultimately — the mandate will have a positive effect. “The bright side,” she said, “is that because of government’s overreach and its declaration of war on the Church [it] gives us a reason to have a conversation about morality that we should have had way back in the 1960s.”

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a Reformed Presbyterian minister and director of the Christian Defense Fund, a key organizer of the event, stressed that the rally was “not a finishing point, but the beginning of a revolution of human justice and religious freedom in America.”

A handout pledged that the Catholic bishops and other religious leaders who oppose the mandate “can count on us to carry this fight together to victory” and urged participants to vote in the fall general election for a candidate who would promise to rescind the mandate.

In addition to Parker and Hawkins, speakers included Lila Rose of Live Action and Lori Windham, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and Belmont Abbey College in their lawsuits against HHS.

The Register is a service of EWTN.

Invoking Reagan

While the crowd was dotted with priests in collars and sisters in religious habits, the gathering was decidedly nondenominational. The Rev. Johnny Hunter, for example, a Protestant minister and prominent pro-family leader from Lafayette, N.C., said he had come to Washington for the event because “an earthly ruler has decided that religious groups are to obey him and not God.”

“Our Catholic brothers and sisters are under attack, and this is an attack against the whole Church,” Hunter told the Register. “People should understand that when the Church is under attack everybody is under attack.”

Although the assembly occasionally rang out with the chant of “We will not comply! We will not comply!” the crowd was good-natured and laughed appreciatively and clapped when Parker joked from the stage, “No more than my automobile insurance should cover your tune up should I have to cover your sex life.”

Supporters of the mandate have tried to portray those who oppose it as waging a “war on women,” but Lila Rose took issue with this and insisted that the real war on women is being waged by Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide or advocate for abortion.

“Who stands to gain by this mandate?” Rose asked. “Who’s going to step forward [to fill the vacuum if faith-based organizations are forced to close]? Planned Parenthood and their friends. You think they are big now? Imagine what will happen when such organizations take over our health-care system. That will be the real war on women.”

The theme of the gathering was as much the issue of liberty as contraception. Kristan Hawkins quoted former President Ronald Reagan, saying that freedom is “never more than one generation away from extinction.”

“Freedom must be fought for, protected and handed on, or, one day, we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when we were free,” Hawkins said.

Rev. Mahoney reminded the crowd that the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act next week and asked them to join in praying that the court will strike down the law.

Comments

Shout out to my priests in Eastern Washington who have been speaking about these political issues turned personal at mass!

Posted by cowalker on Sunday, Mar 25, 2012 10:46 PM (EST):

Posted by Tom in Lazybrook on Friday, Mar 23, 2012 5:28 PM (EST):
“While were on the subject of Persecution and the Catholic Church. Why is the Catholic Church supporting legislation to throw people in jail for up to 10 years for simply holding a religious ceremony in accordance with their faith?”

The problem with Church doctrine, as with all religious doctrine, is that although it is supposed to contain the Truth, the doctrine always has to be interpreted. And when it is interpreted it is trimmed, puffed, twisted and straightened to fit the culture.

The next presidential will be the most critical and definitive in our nation’s history. Freedom has never been at greater risk – Not from outside, but within because a socialist tyrant was elected in the last time. If he is not removed from office, the greatest experiment of a Republic ruled by the people will be relegated to the trash heaps of history. Socialism has been seriously eroding our nation’s freedom from the early Thirties. I became aware of it in high school in the early Forties, but in spite of the prediction in 1936 by Norman Thomas that it would take over our nation without firing a shot, I never thought the Freedom loving people would ever let it happen. The HHS mandate is the tip of the iceberg that is in reality a wake up call to arms to preserve our religious-freedom heritage. Abomination, abortion, and genocide will never be God’s way. We need to diligently pray for mercy. God has rained fire on nations that were more moral then we have become.

Posted by Cathy on Saturday, Mar 24, 2012 11:19 AM (EST):

A friend and I went to congressman Tim Bishops office yesterday in Southampton New York.We arrived @ 1 pm and the crowds which we were told
was appx 50, they had just left. There was a small group of people with a flag and some signs presenting the opposite point of view.What was so humbling was the confusion of the motorists,The clusters signage was of a womans libery and then they saw 2 single signs DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD
and ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN.And I believe the confusion supposed womans libery and the light of truth sent those into the rest of the day pondering and possibly re evaluating the reality presented.I don’t really know who set this up but we are thinking my friend and I of going back on a regular basis .Thanks and God Bless

Posted by Colleen on Friday, Mar 23, 2012 9:37 PM (EST):

I’m so glad I was there - it was a pretty amazing experience to be with so many people all opposed to the mandate. The article’s right about the good nature of the group, it was very friendly with people greeting each other and kids running around.

But I wish the author had mentioned the bishop who is here from Seoul, Korea to share his support and encouragement, and that the Koreans have dedicated three days of prayer for us here in the US. So amazing!

Posted by Tom in Lazybrook on Friday, Mar 23, 2012 6:28 PM (EST):

While were on the subject of Persecution and the Catholic Church. Why is the Catholic Church supporting legislation to throw people in jail for up to 10 years for simply holding a religious ceremony in accordance with their faith?
Sources: The RC Bishops Conference of Nigeria endorsed legislation in Nigeria (source: Middle Paragraph http://www.cbcn-ng.org/newsdetail.php?tab=27) . Section 5 of the Bill (source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/74807203) states:
1. Persons who entered into a same-sex marriage contract or civil union commit an offence and are each liable on conviction to a term of 14 years in prison.
2. Any person who registers, operates or participates in gay clubs, societies and organisations or directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationship in Nigeria commits an offence and shall each be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years in prison.
3. Any person or group of persons that witness, abet and aids the solemnization of a same-sex marriage or civil union, or supports the registration, operation or sustenance of gay clubs, societies, organisations, processions or meetings in Nigeria commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a term of 10 years imprisonment.” THIS COULD BE USED TO THROW CONGREGANTS OF OTHER FAITHS IN PRISON FOR THE CRIME OF ATTENDING A CHURCH SERVICE. FORMING A ‘GAY DISCUSSION CLUB’ OR EVEN MEETING AT A COURAGE EVENT. Actually from the words in the text, it looks like Courage would definately be illegal under the law.
I’ve been trying to get clarification on how the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in this matter could possibly NOT be a gross violation of Catechism 2358 (grave discrimination), how American Catholics feel about this endorsement by the Roman Cathoic Church of this type of bill, and how this persecution advocacy by the Roman Catholic Church compares to the perceived persecution by the Catholic Church by its funders in the government.

Posted by JMJGirl on Friday, Mar 23, 2012 5:58 PM (EST):

I am saddened that more of our priests have not been courageously been speaking about this from the pulpit! I am amazed at how uninformed and unaware many of our fellow Catholics are about this issue

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